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Documents That Changed the World [ITunes Link]
A look at documents that have made a difference in the world. Joe Janes, of the University of Washington Information School, tells the stories of these important information objects, how and why they were created, and the impacts they've had. These documents also tell the story of human society. and its never ending evolution.
[Thanks Zamms!]

Archivists are the specialists who snatch objects from oblivion. They have long spent their careers cloistered, like the objects they protected. But now many of these professionals are stepping out. A main reason is the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York. The group, which recently surpassed 500 members, holds monthly events that draw a young, well-dressed crowd, hungry for chances to network, train and socialize. Members not only work at libraries, where archives have long resided, but also at such organizations as the Fashion Institute of Technology, the Junior League, the Episcopal Church, the Philharmonic, the Stock Exchange and the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Inside a Catholic convent deep in St. Augustine's historic district, stacks of centuries-old, sepia-toned papers offer clues to what life was like for early residents of the nation's oldest permanently occupied city.

These parish documents date back to 1594, and they record the births, deaths, marriages and baptisms of the people who lived in St. Augustine from that time through the mid-1700s. They're the earliest written documents from any region of the United States, according to J. Michael Francis, a history professor at the University of South Florida.

The main reason is they are found in HTML documents, which are the representations that matter most on the Web. HTML documents are read by people. They are hypertext documents that link to and from other places on an archives website and elswewhere on the Web at large. They are well understood technically by the Web development community…if

Gov. Nathan Deal and Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp made that announcement Thursday, saying the state will restore $125,000 to Kemp’s budget — enough money to keep the Archives open until at least the middle of next year.

The emergency move came two weeks before budget cuts were to force the Archives’ closure as a full-time facility except by appointment. It was a muted victory for Archives supporters, who lauded the decision but are still fighting to save the jobs of seven employees who will be laid off as of Nov. 1.

October is American Archives Month, a time when Smithsonian archivists and conservators reach out to scholars, researchs, fellow professionals and the public to stir up conversations about the Smithsonian’s collections of archival and historical records and to highlight the many individual Smithsonian archival units responsible for maintaining these rich and complex documentary resources.

Working to solve this digital preservation dilemma became the focus for Doug Reside, Digital Curator of the New York Public Library, along with Mark Horowitz, Senior Music Specialist in the Library of Congress Music Division and curator of the Jonathan Larson collection (see a related blog post). With Mark providing access and expertise about the collection, Doug was able to uncover previously hidden Larson materials by the use of digital forensics techniques (see this blog post interview with Doug Reside about this collaboration).

A newish service from Amazon that might be useful to more than a few folks around here: Amazon Glacier

Amazon Glacier is an extremely low-cost storage service that provides secure and durable storage for data archiving and backup. In order to keep costs low, Amazon Glacier is optimized for data that is infrequently accessed and for which retrieval times of several hours are suitable. With Amazon Glacier, customers can reliably store large or small amounts of data for as little as $0.01 per gigabyte per month, a significant savings compared to on-premises solutions.

Barry H. Landau, the once-esteemed collector of presidential memorabilia, was sentenced seven years in federal prison Wednesday for stealing thousands of historic documents from archives and libraries in Baltimore and up the East Coast. The 64-year-old was also ordered to pay roughly $46,000 in restitution. No sentencing date is yet set for his 25-year-old accomplice, Jason James Savedoff, who, like Landau, has pleaded guilty to theft of major artwork and conspiracy charges.